Thursday, October 02, 2008

Hayden Carruth R. I. P.



 
 

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Sockless Jerry rides again

read and learn

 
 

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via Country Party on 10/2/08

The bailout of Wall Street is the triumph of the wealthy establishment, right and left, over what we used to call the 'working class.' Today, it's called the middle class and it includes most Americans. Caleb Stegall finds a lesson—and a hero—in Kansas' past.

 
 

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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Tuvan Throat Singing

I keep practicing, but no can do unless I am in the steam shower

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Celia Mae McCloud Entered Eternal Life Yesterday.

My Grandmother, who taught me how to read, argue and win at cards.

NEWTON —

Celia "Mae" McCloud, 98, passed away Wednesday (Sept. 17, 2008) at Kansas Christian Home in Newton.

She was born on Aug. 24, 1910, in Walton to William C. and Grace (Stratton) Mills.

She married Robert F. McCloud in June 1935. He preceded her in death in December 1984.

Mae graduated from Walton High School and Bethel College in North Newton. She helped pioneer the Northview Opportunity Center in Newton and taught there for many years. Among her many accomplishments, she was chosen Woman of the Year in her area of teaching.

She is survived by two sons, Terry and Darla McCloud, and Arnie and Joyce McCloud, all of Newton; grandchildren, Scott and Mary Anne McCloud of Newton, Steve and Vonna McCloud of Newton, David and Tayna McCloud of Newton, Shelly and Paul Hardin of Davie, Fla., Beth and Brad Moulds of Hesston, Julie Mills and Jeff Weis of Newton, Jana and Greg Hinz of Newton; 20 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.

She also was preceded in death by her brother, Earl Mills of Newton.

Visitation will be from 1 to 8 p.m. Friday at Broadway Colonial Funeral Home in Newton, with family present from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

A family burial will be Saturday morning at Walton Cemetery.

A memorial service will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Kansas Christian Home.

Memorial contributions may be made to Kansas Christian Home or Hospice Care of Kansas in care of the funeral home.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Is education killing creativity?

amen amen amen

 
 

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via Presentation Zen by Garr on 9/16/08

British reporter Riz Khan put together a nice 20 minute interview last week with Sir Ken Robinson, our favorite creativity and education expert (and famous TED presenter). Even if you've seen Sir Ken's 2006 TED presentation, you'll find this interview an entertaining and thought-provoking refresher. Rizwan Khan is a veteran of the BBC and CNN; he currently hosts the Riz Khan Show on Al Jazeera English.

Part 1
In part one Riz shows a clip from Dr. Robinson's 2006 TED talk. Sir Ken starts out his conversation with the host by suggesting that our education systems (around the world) are outdated and mainly designed to meet the needs of industrialization. Sir Ken makes many good points — some you may not agree with — but he certainly is not saying that math and science should be taught or studied less, rather that music and the arts and creativity in general should be pursued more.


Part 2
In part two Sir Ken tells a couple of interesting stories and makes the point that talent is often buried quite deep within a student and it does not surface until the conditions are right. His new book The Element deals with exploring the conditions that help students find their own "element."



I hope you can take 20 minutes today and watch this interview above. If nothing else, it'll make you think about your own education or the education of your children, etc. When I look back at my own K-12 education, it's really all a blur. How about you? If I could do it all over again, I would study the arts far more deeply and from an earlier age. But I also would take far more science and math classes too. I do not know what an ideal education is, but I think Sir Ken is right when he says we need to transform formal education not just reform it.

I really admire the K-12 teachers of the world, they have the toughest and most important jobs in the world. I never had the talent or courage to be a teacher, but I appreciate the work they do and the challenges they face. Does anyone even have a clue what formal education will look like in the future?

Links
• Sir Ken Robinson's website.
• Sir Ken's 2006 TED talk.


 
 

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Sunday, September 07, 2008

from Stanley Fish and this is what I do in my class

(1) introduce students to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry that had not previously been part of their experience; and (2) equip those same students with the analytical skills — of argument, statistical modeling, laboratory procedure — that will enable them to move confidently within those traditions and to engage in independent research after a course is over." All the rest is distortion, disruption, or at least distraction from what professors ought to do.
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Monday, August 11, 2008

above the door in my classroom

An old inscription above many a threshold.

Pax intrantibus can only be translated as "Peace to those who enter," there is no single translation for Exeuntibus Salus that does it justice. Salus is one of those words with a panoply of meanings, among them: well-being, physical and emotional health, fortune, salvation, safety.

Perhaps the best translation would be "Peace unto those who enter; Health, wealth and happiness unto those who leave."
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Paige Elaine Jaso (nee Lewis, Wilson & McCloud) R.I.P. August 9, 2008

My first great love, Paige, my Santa Lucia, entered eternal life Saturday, August 9, 2008. Rest in peace.

Pax and prayers for the repose of her soul.

scott
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

10 Productivity Myths That Hold You Back



 
 

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via Stepcase Lifehack by Dustin Wax on 7/28/08

10 Productivity Myths That Hold You Back

What are the myths and mistaken beliefs that are preventing you from being more productive in both your work life and your personal life? How are you actively undermining your efforts to pull it all together?

Yeah, I mean you.

The sad fact is that the beliefs that we hold about productivity and organization often prevent us from doing and being everything we want to do and be in our lives. While we cannot control the circumstances around us, the things that we think about work, life, effectiveness, success, and innovation affect the way we respond to those circumstances, and often for the worst.

Here, then, are ten common beliefs about productivity that keep people from enjoying the success they desire. How many of these are keeping you from being more productive, effective, and balanced as a person?

Myth 1: Organized equals clean

Too many people equate "organization" with the cold, sterile, un-lived-in spaces they see in glossy magazines. That's not organization – the cleanest-looking space might still take forever to find anything in.

An organized space is simply one in which the things you need the most are close at hand, the things you need often are easily found, and the things you need rarely are out of the way but easily retrieved when needed. That means that organization has to meet your needs, not some imposed notion of cleanliness.

If you never spend more than a minute trying to find anything in that mountain of clutter you call your office (or room or cubicle or kitchen), then leave it alone. At the same time, be honest with yourself – most people claim they can find anything they need, but when put to the test, they're left scratching their heads. If your clutter isn't working for you, put some time into figuring out how to make sure it does work for you.

Myth 2: I don't have time for a system

This is a popular complaint about systems like David Allen's GTD. The thinking goes something like this: "If I spend all my time maintaining my list and doing weekly reviews, I'll never get anything done."

The reality is that while most systems take some time to get set up, once you start using your system, the time you use in "maintenance" is more than made up for by the time you save not having to think about what to do – or making up for the things you didn't remember to do.

Myth 3: Systems are rigid and unflexible

This is another common complaint about productivity systems. The fear seems to be that, unlike everyone else's life, my life is so chaotic and unpredictable that no system can possibly accommodate it all.

I've read a lot of productivity literature in my life – it is, after all, part of my job! – and I've never come across a productivity system that didn't make room for differences in personality, work requirements, or personal situation. In the end, the important thing is to have a system so that you can respond effectively to unforeseen events without losing your grip on your whole life!

More to the point, though, if your life is really that chaotic and unpredictable, it's likely that its because you've resisted adopting some kind of system rather than because no system is good enough for your life. Which tells me that you haven't spent the time you need to figure out what your own life is all about – instead, you've just responded to everything the world has thrown at you as it's come. Adopting a system means spending some time figuring out what's important to you, what isn't important, and how to get rid of the less important stuff so you can start making ground on the important stuff.

Myth 4: Productivity means more work

Once you start down this rabbit hole, it can be really hard to turn yourself around. The idea is that if it takes me half as long to do all the things in my life as it takes me now, then getting productive means I'll be doing twice as much.

If you're not smart about things, that can sometimes be true, at work at least. Supervisors hate to see people lounging around while they're still on the clock, so finishing up your day's work at 2:00 pm means you'll be expected to find more stuff to do to fill in the remaining hours. So if you're that productive, you need to either leverage that extra work into a promotion or raise – or convince your boss to adopt a telecommuting plan so you can work from home.

But productivity isn't just about work, either. Being more productive in your life means you should have more time to do things like spend time with your family, take a vacation, read a book, visit a museum, or write your plan for world domination. Getting your work done in half the time just so you can do twice as much work isn't productive – it's dumb.

Myth 5: Creativity can't be fit into a system

Maybe you believe that productivity stuff is for business people, not creative people like yourself. This is wrong for two reasons. First of all, creative work is still work, and just as susceptible to procrastination, poor planning, and shoddy work practices as bookkeeping, house painting, and world domination.

The second reason is that while you may have a great grasp of the demands of your creative work, unless you're comfortable with the whole "starving artist" thing, chances are you have a lot more to do than just the creative stuff. Records need to be kept, clients need to be contacted, taxes need to be filed, projects need to be invoiced, and so on. And here's the rub: creative people generally don't much like doing all that routine, everyday stuff. Having a system to make that stuff as painless and speedy as possible means you can spend more time being creative.

Myth 6: I work best under pressure

There are people who believe they thrive under the pressure of an impending deadline. Nine times out of ten, they don't. They just enjoy the excuse because it means they don't have to take responsibility for the messes they end up in.

Keeping yourself in a high-stress, always-urgent mode isn't good for your health, and it's not good for your business. Health-wise, it means you're very likely to keel over on day, decades before your time. Business-wise, it means you aren't much of a pleasure to work with, which means that even when your work is good you'll be turning off employers, colleagues, or clients – and sooner or later you'll miss some important detail that you were too frantic to recognize, damaging your job, your reputation, and your career.

If you're lucky, you'll have your heart attack before that happens, though.

Myth 7: My lack of a system is my system

This one's actually true, though not in the way most people intend when they say it. The mess of habits, practices, and beliefs you have right now are, in fact, a system – and you're working it every day. Hard.

But what most people mean is that by not having a system, they're actually being more productive than if they had a system. For some, this is just a variation on Myth #2, but others really think that the mish-mash of habits they've cobbled together out of life experience is working for them. They don't see any room for improvement.

Which is what I imagine being dead is like. For living things, there's always room for growth.

Myth 8: I need inspiration to work

No, you don't. Inspiration is wonderful, but rarely compatible with getting stuff done. What you need is a system to capture those flashes of inspiration so that, when inspiration is on holiday, you've got plenty to work with.

We have a word for people who only work when they're inspired. That word is "unemployed". (The reverse isn't true, of course – not all unemployed people only work when they feel like it.)

Myth 9: Being organized is boring

This is a variation of Myth #1, flavored with a dash of Myth #6: some people crave the excitement that always being about to screw up brings them. This may reflect deep psychological trauma, but it may also just reflect a lifetime of bad working experiences – pulling a success out of imminent failure can feel great, and if your "everyday" successes aren't rewarded, it can be tempting to push for the imminent failure so you can pull the success out of the jaws of defeat all heroic-like.

Whatever the root, this myth is misguided because it places attention in the wrong place. Being organized isn't boring – being boring is boring. Make your own excitement and you'll stop being boring – and then you can stop using your disorganization as a crutch for a life not fully realized.

Myth 10: There's something wrong with me no system can fix

This one's probably true. Systems, no matter how good, can't fix the fundamental problems in your life. They won't make you smarter or more likable or better looking or more experienced.

What they can do is help you make time to figure out how to solve those problems. They can help you make a space in your life for real personal growth. And they can help you highlight the sources of those failures, by eliminating the "noise" that normally masks them.

In the end, your growth as a person, your success – however you define it — is up to you. Straightening out the things in your life that keep you from being effective and productive can be an important step towards that success, but it's a means, not an end.

But if you're holding tight to any of the myths above, you're not giving yourself a fair chance – you're standing in the way of your own life. And that's not doing you, or anyone else, any good.

How have you been holding yourself back? Have you overcome any of these misconceptions, and what happened when you did? Share your stories in the comments – I, for one, would like to hear about it!

Dustin M. Wax is a contributing editor and project manager at lifehack.org. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and women's studies in Las Vegas, NV. His personal site can be found at dwax.org.

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